


I, Armitage

by fluffykomodo (god_is_undead)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All characters aside from Hux are only mentions, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, General Hux and the aftermath of his No Good, Hux is Not Nice, Hux is So Done, Hux is a nasty piece of work, Insecurities, Planning Adventures, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, Very bad day, because no he's pretty much a backstabbing little shit and always has been, conversations with one's mirror, mostly in terms of the aftermath, really amused at the idea that he's somehow more of a wimp than in tfa, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_is_undead/pseuds/fluffykomodo
Summary: Armitage Hux makes it back to his quarters at the end of a No Good, Very Bad Day.They haven't even found Phasma yet.





	I, Armitage

At the end of the day, there was nothing but the silent sterility of his stateroom on the _Finalizer_ , familiar down to the last deckplate and yet completely alien. The entire galaxy had changed since the last time General Armitage Hux had crossed its threshold.

 _The Supreme Leader is dead_.

It still hurt a little to breathe, and he suspected that while the bacta pads they had used on him in medical had prevented the worst of the bruising he might otherwise have suffered, other, subcutaneous injuries persisted.

 _Long live the Supreme Leader_.

No one saw that coming, he would wager that much. As far as Hux had known, Ren was still bleating about his grandfather and wearing a mask because so had Darth Vader.

What did Ren even want with the position of Supreme Leader? What was he going to do—did he even have a plan in mind, or was this just another incipient disaster nipping at the heels of Ren’s completely par-for-the-course mindless impulsivity?

Whatever the reasons, it was Hux’s new reality.

 _Supreme Leader Kylo Ren_. If this was all a bad dream or a joke, it wasn’t funny.

“Lights,” he called out, and was suddenly bathed in illumination. Not a thing was out of place. Everything was exactly as he had left it when the galaxy still made sense.

Hux crossed the room, finally shedding the reassuring bulk of his greatcoat and placing it on its hangar in the closet, where it wouldn’t be creased. He reached for his neck to release the collar tab, and flinched invisibly at the pain that coursed along his arm, shooting up from the base of his spine. 

Even though his split lip had been healed and the worst of his injuries mended to the point he could function, his whole body hurt. After being hurled into the bulkhead of the shuttle on Crait, and before that, around the bridge of his ship, at thirty-four, however well-preserved he was from the neck up, time had begun to take its toll. His limbs were no longer as…spongy as they had been when he’d been a child, and his father had dragged him out of his hiding places and beaten him senseless. This pain was deep, and aching, and he could tell it would linger.

 _It’s likely to not be the last time_. How convenient that First Order medical facilities were top of the line, but he didn’t relish the thought of being a frequent flyer.

But now Supreme Leader Snoke was dead, and so much had changed in so little time.

He pulled the collar loose, and went into the refresher, and looked into the mirror.

He hardly recognized himself. Mere days ago, he had stood on the bridge of the _Finalizer_ , impermeable and assured of his place and position as he gazed down at the desert planet of Jakku. Given a speech as he presided over the destruction of the Hosnian system. Now…

His eyes were like bleak embers, banked in haunted, dark sockets. His mouth was set in a grim line against the pain he endured, the tension just barely visible in the set of his jaw, and his hair was ruffled so badly that a single lock of red had fallen out of place and across his forehead.

Supreme Leader Snoke, the fixture and the focus of so much—dead. Just like that. It seemed inconceivable. So sudden. 

Starkiller Base, such a focal point and goal and a source of pride and anticipation for so many years of his life—gone.

It all left him completely wrong-footed, the rug yanked right out from under his feet.

His whole strategy gone with it, too, though that didn’t seem to matter much anyway: even he was privately astonished. Not even the most optimistic of his staff had projected that the Republic would vanish overnight, like a shadow of ash blown away by a breeze—

But it had. The First Order reigned supreme. Retaking the galaxy suddenly all seemed to have been so absurdly easy, even despite Hux’s absolute confidence in the First Order, that it was hard not to wonder why they hadn’t done it sooner. He wondered how the Empire had lost in the first place. Clearly, the Imperial military had been less dedicated, less well trained.

And the Republic had been even more false than he had been led to believe.

But standing here, at the end of it all, he was the commander of a force which owed its allegiance to a petulant, spoiled child.

Ren had never been a commander of troops. He was barely in command of himself.

On top of all this, Phasma was missing. She was not on the rosters of the recovered, dead or alive, but then they hadn’t called off the searches yet, so maybe that would change. Without her…

The leather of Hux’s gloves creaked as he clenched his fists on the edge of the sink, staring himself in the eye. An old, insidious revenant curled to life in his gut. It was cold, and heavy. He could feel his heart start to beat harder and faster in his chest.

 _Weak_. Green eyes burned under the refresher lights as he leaned forward. His still slightly swollen lip peeled back and he sneered at himself.

He was the General of the First Order. He commanded legions of well-trained troops and—

And when Snoke and then Ren had flung him around like a child’s toy, he had squeaked and yelped, dragged in spite of himself back into a distant past where he had been just as powerless against his father as he was now against Force users.

It was humiliating.

It was disgusting.

It was _absolutely_ _terrifying_.

He’d never been alone like this to pick up the pieces by himself. Not in years. Throughout everything he had managed to achieve, Phasma had always been there. His right hand, his redoubt. She had murdered his father at his command and together they had risen in the ranks of the First Order. _Without Phasma, what am I? How can I be sure of my own position?_ He had lost Starkiller and he had let the last remnants of the Resistance slip through his fingers, and he was stuck with Kylo kriffing Ren for a Supreme Leader, and he was…

 _Useless._ His father’s voice taunted him, in his ear every moment of every day. _You’re useless and you can’t do this yourself, because you are_ useless. Hux flinched, trying to ignore the voice that inspired the low-grade undercurrent of fear that never seemed to leave him be at any waking moment. It had somehow receded out of sight until the destruction of Starkiller. Now it returned with a vengeance. Had he only thought—

He thought he’d gotten past this.

 _It has no place in me now_.

He tried to push it back into its dark little corner in his mind.

Suddenly he couldn’t stand the sight of himself, pale, pathetic, almost gaunt after the strain of the last few days. That wasn’t the face of a General, it was the face of a useless, skinny child playing at being a General, how had he—

He uttered a choked scream, and slammed his fist into the mirror. It splintered and shattered, and fell like glittering rain on the sink and to the deck.

“ _I **AM** THE_ —”

He made himself be silent, and forced himself to stay that way as his breath heaved and he gazed down at the empty sink, now littered with shards of mirror and droplets of blood. He could see parts of himself reflected in the little pieces.

 _If I’m useless, then Ren is worse. At least I know how to give proper, specific commands in battle, Ren just screams the first thing to come into his head like a child. But I must make him understand that I am useful. I can take his insipid screaming and turn it into reality_. For all the Supreme Leader had taken well to Hux's transliteration of his meaningless shouting over Crait. 

 _Yes_. If he remained useful, then there would be no reason to dispose of him.

 _I must remain useful to him at all costs. To Ren, no matter how much I despise him. It is absolutely necessary. I am still the General, and all that can take that from me is death_.

Slowly, his breathing evened out, and his thoughts settled.

This was a stumble, not a fall. He would have more chances, or he would make them. Had he been conscious during the battle between Ren and Luke Skywalker on Crait, he would have ordered all weapons to concentrate their fire on the pair, but since he was not, he had lost that perfect chance to kill two birds with one stone. Yes, he’d tried to tell Ren it was dangerous to face Skywalker alone, but—

But it was imperative that he always appear to act in Ren’s best interests, at least to his face. It galled Hux to give up command of his troops to anyone, most of all Kylo Ren, and so there had been that eating at him as well as the fear of being sidelined, the desire to remain relevant ( _useful_ ), but his life, and his ambitions, rested on keeping all that he had achieved thus far. He wouldn’t gain anything by openly opposing the Supreme Leader, at least not before he had made proper arrangements.

Better to wait for the opportune moment to slip the knife into his back.

Yes. He would simply wait for the right time to strike. _I, Armitage Hux_ —

In the meantime, he would simply...wait. Bide his time. Play the loyal General, and allow the right opportunity to present itself. His ambitions had not been neutered. The First Order was loyal—but to whom? It was not lost on him that the loyalty of the Stormtroopers had been trained to the chain of command they knew. The officers, well—they certainly had no reason to love Kylo Ren.

 _I will be Emperor_.

_Now...what is step one?_

**Author's Note:**

> Some people think Hux's characterization is inconsistent. I flatly disagree; Hux's characterization is absolutely consistent. What we see is giving the bad guy a human element; that is to say, the events of TFA affected Hux. He isn't the cold and untouchable Tarkin-like figure he'd like to be, he's lost Starkiller and he's completely uncertain about his own position. And canonically he is extremely insecure. So we see him unravel a bit in TLJ.
> 
> Also, he almost caps Kylo Ren in what is hands-down my favorite scene with him. Reach for that blaster and then just...hmm.......bad time, fold the coat back over.
> 
> I can't wait for Ep 9.
> 
> Edit: Um, I forgot a word and it was kind of the one that made the whole damn sentence make sense so...lol.


End file.
